They are everywhere at the protests, handing out masks, squirts of hand sanitizer, bottles of water, energy bars. They don’t have a name, really, the people who decide to come to the marches prepared to keep others around them safe, fed, and hydrated.

There are protest medics with red-taped crosses on backpacks full of eyewash and bandages—anything that could treat minor wounds or help neutralize tear gas and pepper spray. But while medics are intentionally visible, there are care workers at the protests who go unnamed, and often, unseen.

They seem to be more common now, in this post-pandemic wave of the Black freedom struggle.

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